1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an output device, a method, a program, and a storage medium therefor, and particularly to a diagnosis support technique for creating a medical document, such as a chart (medical record) or an image diagnosis report. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique for outputting a schematic view (schema) showing a positional relationship between a human body structure and a diseased part that a doctor draws on a medical document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Before medical documents, such as charts or image diagnosis reports, were computerized, a doctor drew a schema (a schematic view showing a positional relationship between a human body structure and a diseased part) by hand on a medical document made from paper. Recently, as medical information systems such as HIS or PACS have become widely used, the computerization of such medical documents has been gradually introduced. That is, a medical document, such as a chart or an image diagnosis report, conventionally created by a doctor by hand is electronically created and displayed using an information device, and moreover a diagnosis support device that enables communication with another medical information system has come into use. Note that “HIS” is an abbreviation for Hospital Information System, and “PACS” is an abbreviation for Picture Archiving and Communication System.
When electrically creating a medical document, a character string can be comparatively easily input using a keyboard. On the other hand, in order to draw a diagram having an arbitrary shape, by operating an input device such as a mouse or a tablet, it is possible to input a trajectory drawn by the input device as line information. However, since it is necessary to precisely draw a human body structure having a complex shape when creating a schema, it is not easy to draw a diagram satisfying the necessary requirements with a drawing method using a mouse or a tablet.
In view of this, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-318154 discloses a configuration in which a plurality of schema templates (hereinafter, referred to as basic schemata) are previously stored in a device, and a doctor is allowed to select a desired basic schema. Using this configuration, after selecting a basic schema, the doctor can create a schema by drawing a simple diagram showing a diseased part on a basic schema (hereinafter, a basic schema on which a diagram showing a diseased part has been drawn is referred to as a schema).
Further, a configuration in which a desired schema out of a plurality of schemata created as described above is displayed on a monitor is known. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-122849 describes a configuration in which shortcuts such as a name of disease and a syndrome are provided on a screen of an electronic chart so that a doctor can obtain desired information by selecting these shortcuts.
However, the conventional configurations have the following problems.
Although the configuration described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-122849 allows the call-out of a schema drawing from a shortcut associated with a disease name or the like, it is necessary for a doctor to designate a disease name or the like in order to call out a desired schema drawing from a plurality of schema drawings. Here, since a great number of disease names that can be designated exist, it is troublesome to perform an operation for designating a disease name and calling out a schema drawing with such a conventional configuration.
Further, as for a schema having information indicating changes with the passage of time or dynamic information, when displaying such a schema on a monitor, since information pieces can be switched and displayed, a doctor can check a plurality of information pieces. However, a great number of schemata that are display targets exist; thus, it was troublesome for a doctor to perform an operation for selecting a schema to be displayed.